Crystalfontz LCD display from kernel?

[Tim Pushor]

Hi hackers,

I originally submitted this question on 'questions' but didn't receive 
much response.

I am planning on putting a small 16x2 line LCD panel (crystalfontz 633) 
on a FreeBSD system, and writing a small application to control and 
display various things via the LCD and buttons. This is fine.

My question is, I would really like to be able to display various things 
during startup, shutdown, and once shutdown is complete to the LCD. I 
assume I would have to modify the kernel for this. I done lots of C 
programming, and hardware interface programming in C and assembler, but 
never any UNIX kernel programming.

First of all, is this doable? Also, would it be easier (from the kernel 
programming perspective) to do this via USB or Serial?

Thanks for any and all advice.
Tim

(Please CC: me as I am not subscribed to this list - thanks)